Fat Grafting

Fat grafting, or a fat transfer, is a method that requires the use of the patient’s own fat cells to restore youthfulness and volume to various areas of the body. For example, a patient may want to take away some fat from her stomach region, while increasing the size of her breasts with the same fat cells.

Fat grafting, also known as fat transfer, uses your body’s own fat cells to restore volume in a natural way to face, breasts, or buttocks. This method of tissue augmentation takes fat from somewhere on your body where it’s not needed (usually abdomen or buttocks) using liposuction – and then transplants the fat to restore volume to key areas in your face via injection. Another popular method of facial volume replenishment is dermal fillers.

Fat transfer can also be used modestly to increase breast size. Most women who desire breast augmentation want a larger volume than fat transfer can provide. However, combination therapy, using breast implants and fat transfer together, can create a very natural appearing larger breast.

Most recently, fat transfer has been used to reshape and volumize the buttocks in the Brazilian Butt Lift procedure.

Are You a Candidate for Fat Transfer in Seattle, WA?

Facial fat grafting can be a good solution for enhancing volume in deeply depressed parts of the skin, such as:

Hollow cheeks

Inverse (depressed) scars

Deep folds in the skin

Fat grafting can also be used to:

Modestly increase breast size naturally

Camouflage implant visibility

Be used in combination with implants for a natural-appearing breast augmentation

Enhance buttock projection

Reshape your figure to a more hourglass shape

One big caveat, of course, is that because fat grafting begins with a separate liposuction procedure in which the fat is harvested, you need to have a sufficient amount of fat that can be removed from somewhere on your body.

How Does It Work?

After liposuction, the fat is carefully and gently prepared to avoid damaging the cells. It is then injected into the desired location where your body will create new blood vessels to nourish these cells over the course of days to weeks. It is important not to put pressure on the fragile new graft while this process is taking place so that as many as possible of the transplanted fat cells survive and develop their own nutritional supply. Once this process is complete, the new graft is permanent.